ALA 2008: Institutional Repositories: New Roles for Acquisitions – Ohio State University’s repository

Called the ‘Knowledge Bank’ – is DSpace. Content is defined by ‘institution’ – but different types of content:

  • Journals
  • Monographs – e.g. Ohio State University Press
  • Undergraduate Theses (not ETDs which are done in a consortial system)
  • Conference materials/Technical reports/Images/etc.
  • Currently 30k records (started since 2004, but with some significant batch deposits)

Knowledge Bank pushes out to other sources – e.g. ScientificCommons.org, OAISter

They created a Metadata Application Profile for the KnowledgeBank, using core set of metadata elements and DC Metadate Element Set – available from KnowledgeBank website

Question – does the metadata make sense when it is outside the institutional context? Example of a library newsletter – makes sense in the KnowledgeBank because it exists in a hierarchy (not sure, but I guess by collections?), so they didn’t in the firstplace bother replicating this information in the record. However, then when taken out of that hierarchy and put into OAISter (for example)  – without that hierarchy information, it was impossible to tell what it was.

They decided to add the relevant information back into the record (this seems really wasteful – it should have been done surely at a system level – should have been possible to automate the integration of the hierarchy information into the record without having to rekey)

Mentioning problems of authority control – lots of people contributing etc – so many variations in author names, and in subjects etc. They are doing a project to clean this up for a single collection at the moment

Saying that people often add keywords that are already in the title, so they don’t add information (although I’d argue that it does add information – this kind of thing could be used to help relevancy surely?)

They have setup a ‘Community Metadata Application Profile’ – which is shared with all who submit material into the repository. She is showing some details on the slides, but I can’t read it.

They have Customized Item Metadata display at a collection level. Also customize collection display – e.g. for journal collections, they have a ‘Table of Contents’ display which can be browsed from an ‘issue’ record.

They have License Agreement in place, with an optional Creative Commons license – done each time someone submits. When submission is done by a proxy, the individual signs a permission to allow this – which is then attached to the item, though suppressed from public view.

There are customized input forms for submission – again at Collection level. Can also do customized input templates with prepopulated metadata fields for repeated information.

There are Item Submission Workflows – example of the speakers workflow areas – can approve/reject/or push back into the pool of work.

Talking about batch loading of items – using (for e.g.) a spreadsheet to create the data (cols of DC data) – creates an XML file, which then loaded in batch. Using a spreadsheet means no new interface to learn for people not working with the KnowledgeBank everyday. (I’d personally prefer to see a repository that was easy to use, so this wasn’t a problem)

They also repurpose MARC metadata for things that may have already been catalogued in a Library catalogue systems – transforming it into DC and loading into the KnowledgeBank.

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